Singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus releases new single

Queer, US-based singer-songwriter comes to UK

By Danielle Mustarde

Published: 2018.02.13 09:59 AM

LUCY DACUS

With the release of her second album Historian heading our way on 2 March, the Virginia-based singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus gives us another taste of what’s to come with her brand new single Next Of Kin.

Showing off Lucy’s silky alto, crisp production, and intimate storytelling, Next Of Kin is the "thesis statement of the album".

“It's a breaking point after a build up of difficult subject matter" explains Dacus. "It's a song about accepting fate, forgetting fear, and allowing yourself to be incomplete always."

Previous release Addictions is accompanied by a music video self-directed by Dacus

Marked as one of the most anticipated releases of the year by the likes of Esquire, Vulture and AV Club, Historian follows on from her "self-recorded-in-a-single-day", 2016 debut No Burden.

Now, the 22-year-old Dacus is getting ready to bring Historian to the UK with a live tour in April kicking off in Leeds and finishing up in Brighton.

"This is the album I needed to make," says Dacus, who views Historian as her definitive statement as a songwriter and musician. "Everything after this is a bonus."

And it is indeed a remarkably assured 10-track album that finds her unafraid to take on the big questions — the life-or-death reckonings, and the ones that just feel that way. It's a record full of bracing realizations, tearful declarations and moments of hard-won peace, expressed in lyrics that feel destined to become someone's first tattoo.

"It starts out dark and ends hopeful, but it gets darker in between. It goes to the deepest, darkest, place and then breaks," Dacus explains.

"What I'm trying to say throughout the album is that hope survives, even in the face of the worst stuff."

You can buy the new single here. For information on her April tour, click here.

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